Disclaimer: I do not own any of the MISSING characters. NONE of them are of my belonging.

Chapter 5

Nicole stood there for a moment looking at Pollock in awe. She could not believe what just went on. "Sir…" Nicole questioned Pollock hoping for an explanation.

"Get out" was the only thing he said as he calmly dismissed both Nicole and Antonio. The two left his office.

"Listen Nic, we need to talk", Antonio told her once they walked out in hopes of confronting her about how she's been acting lately.

"Not right now, Antonio, I gotta talk Jess," Nicole answered him right before she went to catch up to Jess.

Nicole found Jess at her desk fidgeting with some of the things on her desk and trying to stay calm. "Hey Jess, what's going on?"

Jess caught hold of a pen on her desk and kept fiddling with it. Jess wouldn't answer she just stared down at her fingers and continued playing with the pen, passing it from finger to finger, faster and faster until it drove Nicole completely insane. Nicole clapped Jess's hand along with the pen onto the desk. "Jess talk to me," she requested.

"What? What is there to say, Nic? You saw what happened," Jess replied still disturbed.

"Pollock? Come on Jess, don't take him personally. He's been going through some tough times; it's hard for him to stay in control," Nicole reassured her.

"I dunno what to say, Nic. I've been here for two years, and it feels like home, you guys feel like family. But now I'm just some psychic," Jess continued.

"Jessica Mastriani?" Nicole said with disbelief in what she had just heard Jess say. It had felt weird to say Jess's full name since she rarely calls her by anything other than 'Jess'. Jess was also surprised by how Nicole sounded. "Jess, don't talk like that, you're not just some psychic you are my best friend, and you guys are the closest family I've ever had. I'm not going to let anyone, especially Pollock, break the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I mean did you hear Pollock?" asked Jess.

"Listen Jess this is just about normal for Pollock…" answered Nicole.

"No it's not, for the past few weeks, day after day, he has been coming down hard on me and that was the last straw. You saw the look he gave me, what was I supposed to do?" Jess kept going.

"Okay, so you walked out, you did what you had to, that's cool," Nicole tried to reassure her.

"Even if I could get fired?" asked Jess.

"Jess, you won't get fired, our team needs you and Pollock knows it," Nicole continued. "Let's get your mind off this and put this case to rest."

Antonio approached them before they could get anywhere. "Hey, I got something for you. The bruises on Emily, some of them are fresh, from right before she died but there were some on her that seem as if they're been there for quite a while." He informed them.

"Okay, so how could we build on that?" wondered Jess. "I mean it's not like we can ask her."

"Well, if she knew something about it maybe her friend did too. Let's get that Beth girl over here," said Nicole.

After not too long Beth was at the bureau in an interrogation room with Jess while Nicole was watching from the outside.

"Okay, listen Beth we're investigating this case so we can prevent anyone else from getting hurt but we need your help." Jess notified her. She could tell how shaky Beth was.

"I-I'll do anything to help. She-she didn't deserve this. She was fun, bright, energetic, she was gonna be Miss America, you know," said Beth about to burst in to tears for she had already been informed that Emily was not alive. Jess put her hand on Beth's shoulder hoping to comfort her. Nicole was watching Jess through the glass, she knew that Jess was in a fragile situation at the moment and she was afraid that Jess would break during the case. Nicole wanted to burst into the room and take over but she refrained herself from doing so. She trusted Jess and she wanted to make sure Jess knew that.

"We found bruises all over Emily. Beth, do you know where they came from?" Jess asked her. Beth stayed silent for a moment. "Beth anything you know can help us."

"Well… her boyfriend's name is Max, Max Densler. He was nice guy but he was a bit… violent… at times," Beth confessed.

"And he did this to her?" Beth nodded and Jess continued. "Why did anyone go to the police?"

"She loved him. She may have been threatened by him at times and he did get tempered but she said she truly did love him. She begged me not tell, she said she could handle it." Beth admitted.

"Beth, what makes Max 'tempered'?" Jess asked.

"Well at first it was only every once in a while but, but lately if she didn't see him once in every couple of days, hey gets angry. He writes her and calls her continuously; he tracks her down until he finds her." Beth finished. Jess was shocked, not that she hadn't seen this situation before but she couldn't handle it at the moment. She knew that she had to keep going so she took a deep breath and finished up.

"Okay Beth, we're done for now, we'll let you know if we need anymore of your help." Jess concluded. Jess heard the buzz; she opened the door and released Beth while she went over to Nicole.

"Okay, so the boyfriend hasn't seen Emily in almost a week because of the work she's putting in for the pageant. He tracks her down and writes her a note to meet him at the 'big house'. She decides to ignore it and then he comes after her, takes her to his temporary base of operations, the warehouse. He gets her on the second floor balcony, repeatedly abuses her until he loses control and pushes her off?" Nicole suggests.

"There's only one way to find out…" Jess implied.

"Yeah, we get Max's lousy ass in here… and now." Nicole responded.

A/N - I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. And I'd to thank you people for the reviews so far. Please keep up the reviews, it doesnt take too long, the more i get the faster i'll update. I really wanna know how I'm doing.